VOL.78/2025.01

 

[Award-winning Korean Books ②]

Korean Literature’s Borderless Literary Appeal

Korean works nominated or winning international literary awards in 2024

 

2024.12.02

 

The flow, trend, and outlook of Korean literature

 

Until 2023, one of the major concerns in the Korean literary world, intellectual circles, and the publishing industry was whether Korean books, including literature, would continue to expand their presence in the global content market. And, this became a “certainty” in only a year. Han Kang’s winning of the Nobel Prize in Literature served as the catalyst. In the four years since 2020, the number of Korean authors winning international literary awards skyrocketed. Among the 45 awards won since 2003, 20 were from 2020 and onward. The following are some of the most prominent wins or nominations for international literary awards in the past four years.
In 2020, Kim Young-Ha’s Diary of a Murderer (Bokbok Seoga) won Deutscher Krimipreis – International, Cho Nam-Joo’s Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 (Minumsa) was nominated for the National Book Award for Translated Literature, Sohn Won-Pyung’s Almond (Darjeeling Books) won the Japan Booksellers’ Award for Translated Fiction, Kim Geum-Suk’s Grass (Changbi Publishers) won the Harvey Award for Best International Work and was nominated for the Eisner Award for Best Writer, and Kim Yi-Deum’s Hysteria (Moonji Publishing) won the National Translation Award and the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize in the US. More came in 2021 – Yun Ko-Eun’s The Disaster Tourist (Minumsa) won the CWA Dagger Awards organized by the Crime Writers’ Association in the UK. On top of these, there were 17 cases in which Korean literary works won or were nominated for an international literary award in 2021 alone.

 

 

The year 2022 was when we could feel the heightened reputation of Korean literature from various angles. For example, Korean-American writer Lee Min-Jin’s full-length novel Pachinko drew great popularity when it was adapted into a drama series on Apple TV+. This led to a soar in the original book’s sales, making it a bestseller. In addition, two titles, Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung (Rabbit Hole) and Love in the Big City by Park Sang-Young (Changbi Publishers), were longlisted for the Booker Prize, and Cursed Bunny was shortlisted with other five titles. The winning of literary awards for children’s picture books can also be seen as a great achievement for Korean literature. For example, Lee Suzy’s picture book Summer (BIR Publishing) won the Hans Christian Andersen Award. Kim Geum-Suk’s graphic novel Grass won the Muriel Comics Award in Czech, and Baek Hee-Na, who won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2020, won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award in 2022 for Moon Sherbet (Storybowl). Following Almond, Sohn Won-Pyung’s full-length novel Counterattack at Thirty (EunHaeng NaMu) once again won the Japan Booksellers’ Award for Translated Fiction, and Kim So-Yeon’s poetry collection One Letter Dictionary (Maumsanchaek) won the Japan Translation Award.

 

* K-Book Trends Vol. 37 – Go to the interview with writer Lee Suzy

 

* K-Book Trends Vol. 26 – Go to the interview with writer Baek Hee-Na

 

* K-Book Trends Vol. 22 – Go to the interview with writer Sohn Won-Pyung

 

 

In the meantime, Han Kang has won a total of six international literary awards, including the Nobel Prize in Literature (2024) and the Booker Prize (2016), two of the world’s top three literary awards. She has also received literary awards in various European countries, including the Malaparte Prize in Italy in 2017, the San Clemente Literary Prize in Spain in 2018, the Prix Médicis in France in 2023, and the Prix Émile Guimet for Asian Literature in 2024. Following Han Kang, Kim Hye-Soon stands out the most, with a total of five international literary awards. Kim’s literary awards are mainly from North America, such as the National Book Critics Circle Awards for Poetry this year, the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize in the US, and the Griffin Poetry Prize International in Canada in 2019. Also, Kim Young-Ha has received a total of three international literary awards. He won the Japan Translation Award in 2018, the German Independent Publishers Literary Award, and the third prize in the international category of the German Mystery Literary Award (Deutscher Krimipreis) in 2020.

 

Rapidly growing overseas sales of Korean authors’ works

 

In addition to winning international literary awards, the sales of Korean authors’ works around the world have also seen a significant shift. Last year, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI) tracked sales of 75% of the 658 Korean literary titles (37 language zones) published overseas from 2016 to 2021. The results showed that Cho Nam-Joo’s Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 was the title that sold the most in the international market for the past five years. It has sold more than 300,000 copies in 10 language zones. The biggest sales were in Japan, in which more than 200,000 copies were sold. Following was Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (Changbi Publishers), which sold more than 160,000 copies in 13 language zones. Sohn Won-Pyung’s Almond sold more than 90,000 copies in Japan alone, and Jeong You-Jeong’s The Good Son (EunHaeng NaMu), published in 9 language zones, was particularly popular in Brazil, selling more than 20,000 copies. Also, Kim Young-Ha’s Diary of a Murderer was identified to have sold more than 10,000 copies throughout the year since it was published in Germany in 2020.
The number of Korean literary works that recorded accumulated international sales of more than 5,000 copies as of 2021 was 34 in total. When the English edition of Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 was published in mid-April in 2020 in the US, local readers showed a highly positive response. At that time, the New York Times put the book under the spotlight, commenting, “The heroine of this Korean bestseller is extremely ordinary. That’s the point.” In addition, top media outlets such as the New York Review of Books, El País in Spain, The Guardian in the UK, Le Figaro in France, and Time in the US published book reviews and introductions, showing the high interest of Western readers in Korean literature and social trends.

 

 

Global sales of Korean literature are expected to explode further with Han Kang’s winning of the Nobel Prize in Literature in October 2024. The prestige of the Nobel Prize in Literature has made it difficult for literary readers around the world to doubt or underestimate the depth of Korean literature. With the cultural pride and confidence of Korean writers, the overall demand for Korean literature is bound to increase. The impact of Han Kang’s Nobel Prize in Literature will change the landscape of Korean literature in the future. It is clear from various statistics that global interest in Korean literature has been on the rise in recent years. The liking and curiosity about Korea started with K-pop, but it doesn’t stop there. In addition to popular culture, such as Korean songs, dances, and dramas, the world’s interest now extends deeper into Korean society and intellectualism.

 

Expanding the reach of Korean literature across diverse languages

 

For example, Crying in H Mart by Korean-American Michelle Zauner is a particularly compelling and thought-provoking story. The book, published in the US in 2021, is an autobiographical essay. Michelle Zauner is a second-generation Korean-American who couldn’t understand her mother, who was different from other American mothers, and became more distant from her as she pursued a career as a musician. However, the year Michelle turns 25, her mother passes away from cancer. Afterward, she starts buying ingredients from a Korean grocery store and cooking for herself, reconnecting with her mom. The story ends with Michelle releasing an album dedicated to her mom and growing up to become a world-class musician. This is the coming-of-age story of Michele Jauner, the Grammy Award-nominated vocalist and guitarist of the indie pop band “Japanese Breakfast.” It stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 60 weeks, being selected as the book of the year in 2021 by the New York Times, Time, Amazon, and more, and endorsed by former US President Barack Obama. In response to the enthusiastic response from American readers, the book was translated and published in Korea in February 2022.
Crying in H Mart does not follow the usual pattern of a book being published abroad on the premise of being published in Korea. In this case, it can be considered “Korean literature produced in English.” In the case of literary achievements published by second or third generations of Koreans living abroad in various languages, it is unclear whether we should recognize them as Korean literature if we cannot feel Korean sentiments in them, but Crying in H Mart was obviously and naturally Korean literature. This is also true for Kim Joo-Hye’s full-length novel Beasts of a Little Land. Set during the Japanese occupation of Korea, it tells an epic tale of independence fighters and one of the most dynamic periods in Korean history. Korean-American author Kim Joo-Hye won the Russian Tolstoy Literary Prize (Yasnaya Polyana Prize) in October 2024. The Tolstoy Literary Prize was established in 2003, the 175th anniversary of Tolstoy’s birth, by the Leo Tolstoy Museum, and is currently considered the most prestigious literary award in Russia.

 

 

Kim Joo-Hye was born in Incheon, Korea, in 1987 and moved to Portland, Oregon, US with her family when she was 9 years old. She studied art history at Princeton University. She began her writing career in 2016 with the publication of her short story Body Language in the British literary magazine Granta, and has since published fiction, essays, and critiques in various media, including The Independent. Her short story Biodome, set in a futuristic Korea, is scheduled to be made into a TV series. As a bilingual person who left Korea at a young age but is proud of her native language and has always spoken Korean at home, she has also translated Choi In-Ho’s short story The Biggest House in the World into English. Growing up listening to stories from her mother about her maternal grandfather, she naturally recognized Korean history as a part of her life, and was inspired to write a novel that would share Korean history with readers around the world while also suggesting how we should live meaningfully in the face of natural destruction, war, and hunger.
Beasts of a Little Land was first published in the US in 2021, after which it received critical acclaim, becoming an Amazon “Book of the Month” upon its release and being selected as one of the “Best Books of 2021” by Harper’s Bazaar, Real Simple, Ms. Magazine, and Portland Monthly. It has also been featured as a recommended book in more than 40 English-language publications, including The Times and the New York Times. Although Beasts of a Little Land is an achievement of Anglo-American literature written in English by an author of American nationality, it is also an achievement of Korean literature set against the backdrop of Korea’s independence movement history by an author who identifies herself as a descendant of Korean independence fighters. This is a good example of how the category of Korean literature can be broadened to include works written in various languages.

 

Achievements of Korean literature in 2024

 

Below are some of the works that have won or been shortlisted for major international literary awards in 2024. First, Han Kang won the French Prix Émile Guimet de Littérature Asiatique for her novel We Do Not Part (Munhakdongne) earlier this year, prior to the Nobel Prize in Literature. Kim Hye-Soon became the first Korean to win the National Book Critics Circle Award in March 2024 for Phantom Pain Wings. The award is considered one of the most prestigious literary awards in the US, along with the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. It was the first Korean author to win the award since its inception in 1975, and the first time a translated poetry collection has ever won. Kim Hye-Soon also won the Griffin Prize for International Poetry in 2019 for Autobiography of Death (Munhaksilhumsil). Kim’s 13th poetry collection, Phantom Pain Wings, was published in 2019, in the 40th year of her writing career, by Moonji Publishing. Phantom Pain Wings was also named one of the “5 Best Poetry Books of the Year” by the New York Times late last year. Her poetry is considered to possess global universality. The New York Times commented of the collection that “it is read as a variety of horrors, including spiritual, bizarre, and futuristic situations.”
Hwang Bo-Reum’s novel Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop (Clay House) won the Japan Booksellers’ Award. Hwang Sok-Yong’s novel Mater 2-10 (Changbi Publishers) was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and Lim Sung-Soon’s novel Consultant (EunHaeng NaMu) was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger Award in the UK. Kim Soom’s novel Drifting Land (EunHaeng NaMu) was longlisted for the Prix Émile Guimet de Littérature Asiatique in France, and Ma Young-Sin’s comics Les Daronnes (Humanist) was shortlisted for the Prix Émile Guimet de Littérature Asiatique and nominated for the Official Competition of the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France. The Prix Émile Guimet de Littérature Asiatique is an award presented by the Guimet Museum (Museo Nazionale d’Arte Orientale) in Paris, France. Established in 2017 to promote Asian literature in France, the award is given annually to contemporary Asian literature translated and published in French.

 

 

Korean literature at the heart of world literature

 

The world literary scene has recently been focusing on young Korean writers in their 30s to 50s. Bora Chung is one such writer. In 2022, she was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize for her horror collection Cursed Bunny, one of the biggest hits in the Korean publishing market. Her uniquely imaginative stories about the cruelty of patriarchy using surrealistic elements such as monsters and ghosts have captivated readers around the world and the book is currently one of the most actively exported. Another author, Park Sang-Young, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel Love in the Big City, has also succeeded in capturing the attention of readers around the world in recent years. Love in the Big City, published in 2019, is the author’s second short story collection of four interconnected short- to medium-length novels, including A Piece of Rockfish, the Taste of Universe, and was the winner of the Munhakdongne Young Author Award. It describes the story of youthful love and breakup in a lighthearted yet humorous tone. It is characteristic of Park Sang-Young’s novels that they reflect on the inner worlds of modern people through a light but profound, penetrating mood. And it’s not just Korean readers responding to this. Even before the book was published, a copyright contract was signed with Tilted Axis Press in the UK. Though copyright deals with overseas publishers have become increasingly common, it is unusual to see a contract signed even before publication in Korea. The deal was reportedly arranged by Deborah Smith, who translated Han Kang’s The Vegetarian; it symbolizes that the level of interest and understanding of Korean authors and literature in the global publishing world has reached a much higher level than we had expected.

 

* K-Book Trends Vol. 47 – Go to the interview of writer Bora Chung

 

* K-Book Trends Vol. 48 – Go to the interview of writer Park Sang-Young

 

 

Han Kang’s Nobel Prize in Literature reflects the quality of Korean literature as a whole. Many Korean authors have sufficient literary achievement and artistic quality to be nominated for the Nobel Prize. Han Kang’s win is a testament to the quality of Korean literature. Han’s winning the Nobel Prize will raise the stature of many other Korean writers. This will not only be a matter of quantitative growth but will also foster a sense that Korean literature is now at the center and mainstream of world literature. There is now a self-consciousness among Korean writers that Korean literature is no longer on the fringes, which is bound to be reflected in their works. The works produced by our writers will embody a literary charm that knows no borders, which will mesmerize literary readers around the world.

 

 

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Written by Kim Sheen (Publishing critic)